


A Study in Spacetime

by pickledfingers



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Fanart, Inspired by Fanart, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-07
Updated: 2013-01-07
Packaged: 2017-11-24 02:56:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/629549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pickledfingers/pseuds/pickledfingers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dr. Holmes didn't want to have a geology professor move into his office space with him, but the university had put its foot down, and now here he was.<br/>Dr. Watson , head of Earth Science, was not exactly happy that he had to move in to the Maths department while they rebuilt the science building. But here he was. Stuck in an office with man who appeared to know his every secret.<br/>Sometimes, all you can do is make the best of things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Study in Spacetime

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Sherlock Holmes : Consulting Mathematician](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/15445) by oliveswind. 



> This is inspired by a tumblr post I saw a while back staring Sherlock as a 'Consulting Mathematician' And I loved it. So I wrote the first part of a story and drew a poster for it and here it is!  
> Like I said, this was inspired by, but it really got lost somewhere along the way. If you eventually check out the link, you'll notice that unlike the original, this has nothing (or at least very little) to do with piecewise functions.  
> This isn't beta'd, because it's really just a bit of fun. I might upload more as time goes on and I find new and interesting science things to add in :D  
> For those interested the equations used are mostly gibberish, with the exception of the equation at the top which models dark matter.

Holmes finished the last half of his equation with a flourish, dust in his hair, eyes wild, and chalk flying everywhere. He turned triumphantly to his students and pointed to the blackboard behind him.

"This! This is the most important bit of mathematics you will learn this year." He smirked at his students and raised an eyebrow. "Though you're only in first year; it's not really that important on the scale of things."

One brave student raised his hand before his friends noticed and tried to talk him out of it.

Professor Holmes met the student's eye's with such intensity that the student shrank back into his seat.

"Your name and question." It wasn't a request. Holmes would never do something so polite.

"Micheal? And I was wondering if you could apply this theorem to the integration problem on the last test."

"Micheal... Michael Miller, is it? You managed to incorrectly disprove gravity's acceleration on your first test. We photocopied it and hung it up in the math department."

The student sank down in his chair, cheeks burning.

"To answer your rather obvious question, yes. You can apply this method to nearly any integration problem at this level. As I said," Holmes voice lowered and his British accent neatly cut all the words in to sharp blocks. "This is the most important bit of mathematics you will learn this year."

The class was quiet. Holmes could be dangerous when he got like this. The last time they'd barely left with their weekends intact.

He seemed to reach a decision. The class held it's breath.

"Class dismissed!"

The relief in the air was palpable.

As the class made a break for the doors at the back of the room, Holmes tidied the desk at the front of the room. _They get worse every year_ , he thought to himself.

"Dr. Holmes?"

"That is my name." He eyed the middle-aged man dressed in tweed in front of him and mentally sized him up. Canadian (though at a Canadian university, that was hardly a surprise), newly divorced (wedding ring missing, tan line still visible, evidence of nothing but boxed meals for the last two weeks), probably baring bad news (nervousness, but not intimidated by Holmes' imposing figure so most likely nervousness about the conversation topic, clutching a straw so probably lost a bet to tell him). Holmes sighed. He knew what the man in front of his was about to say.

"They haven't finished my office have they? And no, that's not all, you're also going to have to destroy something of mine in the process of making way for the new maths building."

The man in front of him cringed. "Not of yours, Dr. Holmes. They're having to take out the geology department three weeks ahead of schedule."

Holmes froze.

"No."

"Sir, we have to move them to -"

"No!' he said with more conviction, standing straight and jutting out his chin. “The agreement was that we would move into our new offices and then the earth science department could have our old office space and _then_ their department would be demolished in favour of a road and a new cafeteria. There was to be _no_ unnecessary interaction between geology and mathematics!” He leaned forwards so that he was nose to nose with the short man before him. The shorter man cowered.

“This is unacceptable,” Sherlock whispered, enunciating every syllable.

He straighted out and glared at the man in front of him, who seemed to realize that he still had a job to do.

“Sir, this is a necessary interaction. We can't do this any other way an-”

“I consider any interaction with that department unnecessary! I refuse to share my office with one of them!”

“They said you'd say that. They said that I should say that they can cut off your access to the chemistry labs if you refuse.”

Holmes narrowed his eyes. “They wouldn't _dare.”_

 

 

All in all, John considered, they should have seen this coming. Very few people actually cared for his little department, so this wasn't much of a surprise.

He eyed the office they'd all but thrown him in to.

“You're both department heads! We figured it would be easier to put you together.”

He'd made to protest, but by that time they'd already gone to throw their next luckless victim to the wolves (wolves, mathematicians, both really amounted to the same thing).

He nodded at the politely scowling secretary and wandered into the room he was supposed to be sharing.

It was chaos. Complete and utter chaos. There were books lining every inch of wall that didn't hold a chalk board; and there were exams, papers and in one case, a violin, on all the chairs making it impossible to sit down. So he didn't.

John stood, leaning on his cane and working through the equation in front of him.

It seemed to be a physics problem. For practice, perhaps? Though heaven knew that there was enough cross-contamination between physics and mathematics that trying to guess why the problem was here would be difficult. Wait...

John leaned forwards. His physics was a little rusty, yes, but surely he wasn't reading that right...

Had the man assumed a cosakaiheptadron-shaped universe to make the maths work?

Well. John mentally shrugged.

Perhaps there was new evidence for a 27-sided universe? Twenty-seven seemed oddly specific, though.

A man burst in behind him, startling John. He shut the door with a bang, glared at it, took a moment to compose himself and then turned around smartly.

“I suppose _you_ are my new playmate?” The man hadn't sneered, not exactly. He'd just given the very clear impression that he was trying not to.

“Yes! John Watson. I'm-”

“Head of geology, yes, I know.” The man gave John a piercing look. “Dr. Watson, We'll be rooming for the next six weeks according to the poor man in the tweed suit outside who I'm afraid I may have rather frightened.” a smug look crossed the sharp face in front of John.

“John, please. And that was rude of you.” John wasn't certain if he liked the man in front of him, but he felt sure that the man needed to be taken down a peg or two. Or nine.

The taller man looked startled and then settled in to something close to a genuine smile.

“Yes. I suppose it was,” he said with a quirk of his eyebrow and then pulled a paper towards him and started to read.

And that was it? Nothing more? No proper introductions? No places to sit, no _name?_

“So that's all you're saying? We're sharing a tiny room for the next six weeks and that's all you have to say to me?”

“Should there be more?” said the other man, turning a page of the paper in front of him.

“Yes! a proper introduction, perhaps? A name? Some question on my routine? Anything?”

'You know my name, it's on my door.” The dark haired man allowed himself a brief smile before plunging onwards. “I know you have a limp that you acquired recently in a trek to the antarctic, I know that you hold two doctorates, one in physics and one in earth sciences, I know that the army payed for your first doctorate and you served for a while before getting shot in your left arm. I know that you completed your first year of your second undergraduate in mathematics, before switching over to earth sciences. I know that you're either related to or friends with Professor Harry Flannigan, a fact you keep secret to avoid the look of favouritism, and you take students out to the field during labs whenever you can get away with it. I don't speak for days on end sometimes, with the exception of my classes, for which I'm apparently not allowed to stay quiet. I also play violin when I need to think. Would that bother you?"

John shook himself out of his shock. "how did you know? I-" he mentally shook himself again. "No, I don't mind you not talking, and I like violin well enough if played correctly."

"Really?" There was another small smile. "Happily that will not be a problem. Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got a graduate student to beat around the ears." He shook the offending paper in the air and stood, grasping his coat. He wrenched open the door, but turned back to John before walking out.

"On the off chance that you've managed to somehow hide your illiteracy all these years and are unable to read my name on the door, they call me Dr. Holmes." He paused. "But you can call me Sherlock."

And then he was gone.

 

 

John had always fancied himself a trifle odd. If you studied vulcanology, you had to be a tad strange. His new office-mate took the cake, though.

Twice, John had walked in to find him acting out things with graduate students. Three times he had walked in to find Sherlock lying under John's new desk (“better acoustics.”). Seven times had been on Sherlock playing his violin (though only twice out of those could be classed as playing, the rest of the time it was just random notes and small melodies). On one memorable occasion, John had walked in on Sherlock hypnotizing a hamster. Most of the time, Sherlock wasn't there at all. On no occasion had John walked in on Sherlock doing actual _math_.

“What do you do, exactly?” John had blurted after one day when Sherlock had spent the entire time pacing. “I might be wrong, but aren't maths professors supposed to do, well, maths?”

Sherlock gave him a grin. “I do maths. Though the more traditional mathematics mostly happens in my lessons. What I am is a consulting mathematician. Teaching is merely a hobby which occupies the time between cases.”

John frowned. “And research? Well, not research exactly, but whatever version of that you mathematicians do. When do you find time to publish?”

Sherlock looked over his glasses. “My job is to solve the unsolvable. To keep my position here, I publish papers on how I managed to do that.” He steepled his hands on the desk and leaned forward. “No, when you are a person in either mathematics, physics or chemistry, sometimes you run into unsolvable equations. When that happens, they call me.” Sherlock looked at John proudly.

John rolled his eyes. “No such thing as ego, then?”

Sherlock scowled.


End file.
